UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, 6 February
2004.

Niger: Legal Ban On Female Circumcision Widely
Ignored

Niger's Minister for Social Development and Women's
Affairs called on Friday for a government crackdown of
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), widely known as female
circumcision.

The practice was made illegal in this poor West
African country three years ago, but it remains
widespread and no-one has ever been prosecuted for
performing the crude operation.

The minister, Abdoulwahid Halimatou Oueini, issued
her appeal to mark the first ever world-wide Anti-FGM
Day at a ceremony in the village of Komba, 28km south
east of the capital Niamey.

Komba was chosen because, in 1994, it was the first
village in Niger where local health officials denounced
the practice, which is still carried out by a number
ethnic groups in the region.

As the minister spoke, a group of 24 villages near
the western town of Tillaberry issued a joint
proclamation that they would abandon FMG, which has
until now been widely practiced in these
communities.

"Among certain ethnic groups, excision is a rights
of passage for young women, a young woman who has not
had the operation is subjected to ridicule by her peers
and she will have great difficulty finding in
marrying," explained Selon Halilou Hassan, a
traditional healer from the Boukoki suburb of the
capital Niamey.

FGM generally involves the removal of a woman's
clitoris and parts of the external genitalia, to reduce
the woman's sex drive. Many in Niger, including some
women, see this as a good thing.

"In effect the removal of the clitoris, a very
sensitive organ, reduces the sex drive of a woman and
guarantees a woman is faithful in her marriage,"
explained Mariam Adamou, an old woman who also lives in
Niamey.

Six ethnic groups which account for about a third of
Niger's 11 million population practice female
circumcision. They are the Peulh, Gourmantche,
Djerma-Songhai, Kurtey Wogo and Arabs.

No recent figures are available as to the extent of
the practice, which is carried out covertly.

Medical complications frequently occur and some
girls even die, mainly from heavy bleeding. However,
the traditional "exciseuses" that carry out the
operation, usually with a razor blade in unsanitary
conditions, are reluctant to take the girls to
hospital.

"When a girl is injured and when she looses blood,
you don't take her to the hospital. You use acacia
leaves to make a suture to calm the hemorrhage,"
explained one practitioner who gave her name only as
Haoua. Girls are taken to Haoua for the crude operation
before they reach the age of 15. Their parents pay her
500 CFA, about US$ 1, for her services. Some simply
give her a grain as a gift.

The Niger government is concerned that besides
damaging girls' health, the practice is also fuelling
the spread of HIV/AIDS through the use of
non-sterilised blades.

In theory, persons convicted of carrying out the
operation face a prison sentence of between 6 months
and three years. That can rise to between 10 and 20
years if the girl dies of her wounds.

Trained doctors who carry out the procedure can be
struck off for up to five years.

However, these laws have yet to put anyone in
prison.

The World Day for Zero Tolerence of FGM, was
established after the pan-African lobby group, the Inter-African Committee (IAC) met
to seek ways of combating the practice last year.

FGM is widespread in West Africa, where Burkina Faso
has led the way in combatting the practice over the
past 12 years with a considerable degree of
success.

According to survey figures released in Ouagadougou
last month, the percentage of women subjected to the
operation has fallen to just one or two percent in some
parts of the country from more than 50 percent when the
campaign against FGM started in 1992.